drunkenduckfiction

R. E. Dawson

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Okay!!!Drunken Duckis now available from Itunes (Iphones, Ipads, Ipods), Barns & Noble, Amazon's Kindle for $2.99USD and AmazonUK for £2.09. The novel is also available for instant download in E-book and PDF and Kindle formats from BookLocker.com for $2.99.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

A story of an Irish-American Catholic boy growing up in Sacramento, California, Drunken Duck explores the complexity of human relationships set against a number of unforgettable backdrops.

A coming-of-age novel that takes the Reader back into the 1950s and 60s, culminating with the first stages of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, Drunken Duck is told with an acceptance of the human condition, a wee-bit of humor, and a sometimes-chilling stoicism.

Living in the tough, predominantly Mexican-American, yet ethnically diverse Alkali Flats neighborhood of Sacramento, Patrick Francis Harrington, just Paddy to his “forever friends,” is a complex little boy, wise beyond his years.

Characterized by retribution and redemption, and a continuous struggle with God, his family, a nun at school, and within his neighborhood surroundings, Paddy seeks out and finds love and acceptance from an eclectic group of people, in a world often filled with hypocrisy, drunkenness, violence, and death.

A stranger to himself, a boy with a self-confessed half-a-heart and fragmented soul, he nevertheless has the 'gift-of-knowing' as he looks into the eyes of others and sees beyond the ‘identification of differences’ and critical judgments made about color, ethnicity, and outward appearance, to the inner being; the hopes and fears, of the ‘other.’

Later in life, as a Navy SEAL, he travels to Japan and throughout Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Singapore. His childhood experiences of love and loss are mirrored reflections of the passionate sex he shares with the women he loves, and the bloody confrontations he shares, in duels to the death, with a relentless enemy.

About Me

A Navy veteran, born and raised in California, I traveled throughout Southeast Asia, serving in Japan on the USS Jupiter AVS8 and on the USS Kitty Hawk CVA63, during the Vietnam War (two tours, including the first Carrier stationed off the coast of Vietnam) receiving Vietnam and National Defense Service Medals. Upon returning to CA., I earned a BA and MA in Psychology from California State University, Sacramento. As VP of Sales of Standard Brands Paint, where I worked for many years, I designed and gave sales and management seminars and wrote my company’s ethics and business manual. Drunken Duck is my first novel.